


Take Care

by WriterGirl128



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott, Alternate 3b ending, Angst, Canon up until the end of 3b, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, a little blood, mentions of Allison, mentions of Stiles - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-20 03:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2413028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterGirl128/pseuds/WriterGirl128
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t until that moment that the nogitsune finally released his hold on Stiles. He’d finally created enough chaos, enough strife, and a surplus of pain so great he’d be set for years. He’d torn so many lives apart, created so much grief, pulled so much sunlight out of the sky that all that remained as far as the eye could see was an eternity of darkness.<br/>Take care of Scott, he’d told Lydia, and his voice trembled, weak. Please.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is really bad I think

It wasn’t until that moment that the nogitsune finally released his hold on Stiles. He’d finally created enough chaos, enough strife, and a surplus of pain so great he’d be set for years. He’d torn so many lives apart, created so much grief, pulled so much sunlight out of the sky that all that remained as far as the eye could see was an eternity of darkness.

 _Take care of Scott,_ he’d told Lydia, and his voice trembled, weak. _Please._

Lydia, who had been unable to talk, simply nodded. Numb.

He’d taken in a shallow, shaky breath that made his body shudder. _Lydia, I…_

 _I know,_ she’d gotten out, nodding again. Sobs ripped from her chest, gripping Stiles’ shirt in her hands to keep the ground from swallowing her whole. _I love you too. Stiles…oh, Stiles. Stiles? Stiles, wake up, Stiles, no, god, no please…Stiles. I love you. I’m sorry._

That was a week ago.

It felt like an eternity.

There was a hollowness that lingered in the base of her throat ever since, a certain ache in her muscles that made every movement feel like pushing a mountain. Everything hurt. Every word she said felt like it was being ripped out of her throat, every sound she heard echoed in her ears in high definition surround sound. Her entire body felt heavy, like she’d been filled with lead and was sinking down to the bottom of the ocean. She couldn’t breathe.

She hadn’t seen Scott since that night. She hadn’t seen any of them since that night, though—besides at the funerals, at least. Which she barely remembered anyways. They kind of felt like dreams—nightmares. Only these were ones she couldn’t wake up from.

She hadn’t been to school since, and for what felt like the first time, could honestly not care less about what it did to her grades. What did grades matter, anyways? Who the hell cares what you get in history if you’re just going to end up dead anyways?

Stiles had cared about his grades. So had Allison.

She hadn’t done anything, really—she’d gone from pajamas to sweatpants to more pajamas and had spent a good majority of it just sitting in her bed, all five-foot-three of her filled with emptiness. Her phone laid broken to pieces on the floor—she didn’t remember throwing it against the wall, like that. She didn’t care much. Or at all.

There was a weird light shining through her window—not quite day, but not really night, either. Was it dusk or dawn? She wasn’t exactly sure. She didn’t remember sleeping, though that didn’t say much seeing as the instant replays she saw behind her eyes every time she closed them made sleeping a burden she only carried when she couldn’t help it. She did it as little as possible.

She was tracing the pattern on the blanket over her lap when there was a tentative knock at her door. When she looked up with tired eyes, she saw her mom slowly push the door open, hesitating slightly.

“Lydia? Honey?” she asked gently. “There’s a call for you. It’s Scott’s mom,” she explained, keeping her voice soft. She bit her lip a little. “Do you want me to tell her you’re not home?”

Lydia thought about it, she really did. She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She wanted to just sit there, in the warmth of her bed, until maybe it made her a little less numb. But she found herself shaking her head, eyes still following the pattern. “No,” she said quietly, and her voice was a little hoarse from lack of use. She dragged her gaze up to her mom’s, reaching to her bedside table. She hadn’t even heard the phone ring. “I’ve got it,” she said, lifting the phone off of the receiver. “Thanks.”

 Her mom just watched her for a second before nodding, though the concern was still visible in her eyes. She smiled sadly at her daughter before pulling the door closed as she left. Lydia swallowed hard, before taking a deep breath. She pressed the answer button.

“Hello?” she asked, and it was crazy—it was an automatic response, but hello, she already knew who it was. She shook her head, wincing. She couldn’t think straight. It was like spending a few days away from people stripped her of all the social skills she’d once been so proud of.

“Lydia?” Melissa’s voice came over, and while there was a gentleness to it that made Lydia’s heart ache, there was a sadness in it too that made it shatter to bits. “How are you, sweetheart? I haven’t seen you since the…well, in a while, anyways,” she recovered, and Lydia was grateful for it. The ‘f’ word would’ve made it all crash back down on her again, like a kick to the gut, knocking the wind out of her.

Lydia swallowed again. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Yeah, I, uh—I’m alright. Okay, I guess. How are you?” She almost didn’t want to ask—it was such a cliché, to return the question when someone asked how you were. Not that she didn’t care how Melissa was—no, it was that she cared too much. She didn’t want to hear the lie behind the inevitable “I’m fine”—a lie she knows, since she’s been telling it nonstop for the past week.

Melissa, from the other line, sighed wearily. “Not great, to be honest,” she admitted. “But that’s not why I’m calling. It’s more about Scott. Has he talked to you lately? About…” She didn’t finish, but then again, she didn’t really need to. Lydia knew.

Her stomach tightened at his name. “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “Is he, I mean…” She was about to ask if he was alright, but she knew that too. Stupid question.

“He just…” Melissa began, but broke off with a sigh. “He won’t come out of his room,” she tried again. “He won’t talk to me. I practically have to force food down his throat. And this morning, he kind of—” Lydia could practically hear Melissa wince. “Well, he kind of growled at me a little. A lot. With the eyes and the teeth and everything. I think it’s because of the full moon tomorrow. I’m worried about him. I don’t really—I mean, it was always St…” she trailed off, not finishing Stiles’ name, her voice wavering dangerously.

Lydia’s gaze drifted to the window, where less light was shining through by the second. So it was nighttime, then. Good to know.

She went up to the window, sliding the pane up and looking out at the sky. Sure enough, though the sun hadn’t completely set, she could see the pale figure of the nearly full moon. She bit her lip, but said nothing.  She’d always loved the moon, the way it was the brightest thing slicing through the darkness of night.

“I was wondering if you could, uh, try to talk to him?” Melissa continued, a little awkwardly. “Come over? Maybe he’ll listen to you. You’re part of his pack—I’m just his mother.” Then there was a sound from the other line, almost like something was shattering, and Lydia could practically see Melissa wince. “I think he just broke something.”

Lydia barely heard the words, overshadowed by other ones echoing inside of her head, like the ghost of a memory playing over and over again in her ears.

_Take care of Scott._

She’d already broken her promise.

“Lydia?” Melissa asked softly. “Are you still there?”

Lydia swallowed the lump of guilt in her throat. “Yeah,” she exhaled, letting her eyes drop closed wearily. “Yeah. Okay.” She nodded a little, though it was more to convince herself to go through with it. “I’ll be there soon.”


	2. Chapter 2

Not ten minutes later, she was being welcomed into the McCall house by Melissa with a more motherly hug than she’d gotten from her actual mother in years. She knew how she looked—she hadn’t bothered changing out of her sweatpants and T-shirt, and she was pretty sure her eyes were going to be permanently puffy from crying. She didn’t really care, anymore.

Melissa showed him upstairs quietly, and before she knew it, she was standing alone in front of Scott’s door. She lifted her hand, but for some reason, she couldn’t make herself knock.

“You can come in, Lydia,” Scott’s voice floated to her, from beyond the door, but it didn’t sound much like Scott. Not really. Sure, the pitch and the ever-present kindness was there, but there was an almost lost tone to it that Lydia is sure she’s never heard of Scott McCall before.

It felt like her heart tightened in her chest, like her blood had turned to guilt and it was too heavy to pump throughout her body. She should have been there for him. He’d lost just as much as she had, and instead of being there for him, she sat alone for days. Scott, who threw himself into danger to protect the people around him, who Lydia knew would gladly go back and take Allison or Stiles’ places, had needed someone. Needed her. And she hadn’t been there.

Failing an attempt to swallow down the lump in her throat, Lydia pushed the door open. The room wasn’t as she expected—it was clean, and it was neat, and his bed was made, and from the outside, she probably wouldn’t have known anything was wrong.

Until she turned towards the bathroom, at least, and saw the blood. There wasn’t a lot—perks of supernatural healing, maybe—but there was enough to make worry coil in Lydia’s stomach uneasily. The bathroom mirror was broken, shattered to bits with a bit of dark, red blood following the cracks down to the countertop. A memory floated to the front of her mind, waking up to her mother’s panic, seeing a very similar looking mirror across her own bedroom.  Back in the days where the supernatural didn’t exist yet and when her best friend was still alive and when Stiles Stilinski was just an annoying boy with an annoying crush.

Scott was sitting on the floor of the bathroom, leaning back against the cabinet underneath the sink, knees drawn up. His hands—which were still bleeding, slightly—were in easy fists at his sides, but not angrily. He looked up at her as she entered, and his eyes were flickering slightly, just enough to be noticeable. For a second he looked almost sheepish, dropping his gaze. Then, out of nowhere—“You’re wearing slippers.”

Surprised, not expecting, Lydia looked down at her feet before returning her gaze to Scott. She felt her expression soften, felt the threat of tears sting her eyes again, but _no_ —she would not cry, not here, not now. She was there for Scott, not for another round of crying. Even if the sadness in Scott’s stupid flashing red eyes made her want to. Slowly, a little carefully, she took a seat next to Scott and drew her knees up to her chest.

“And you’re bleeding,” she observed gently, before taking one of his hands in her own, carefully loosening his fingers, uncurling his fists. She began pulling the glass out of his knuckles, not saying anything. Scott stayed silent, too.

It wasn’t until all of the glass was out that Lydia spoke. “You knew I was coming,” she observed again, and it was more of a statement than anything. She gathered up the little pieces of glass in her hand and dropped them into the trash barrel. She used a hand towel to wipe the blood off of her hands, before taking Scott’s hands again to clean them as well.

Scott frowned a little at his hands, before swallowing. “I heard Mom talking to you,” he said quietly, and his eyebrows drew together a little more, a deeper frown. Like it was set to stay on his face for a while.  “She always forgets I can hear her.”

Lydia sighed, setting the towel aside, but didn’t let go of his hands. They were warm, and oddly soft, and the touch of them made Lydia’s cold fingers tingle—though not in a bad way. She squeezed his already healing hand in her own. “Why did you break the mirror, Scott?” she asked, her voice gentle.

Scott let his eyes close, head dropping back against the cabinet. He let out a long breath before shaking his head, and the pure exhaustion radiating off of him made Lydia feel like sinking into the ground. “I don’t know,” he admitted, eyes still closed. “I needed to…feel…something. Anything.”

While part of Lydia understood what he meant on a sad, aching level, she reminded herself to focus. Scott. She raised an eyebrow at him a little, though she still had to blink back the threat of tears. “So you punched a mirror,” she said flatly, nodding.

“Pain makes you human,” he replied quietly, automatically—as if he’d already been thinking it in his head. Scott swallowed, pulling his hands away from Lydia’s. “You shouldn’t be here,” he told her, but his voice stayed gentle, and she knew it was because he didn’t want to hurt her even more. He opened his eyes, which were steadily red, now, pleading. “Lydia, you shouldn’t be here. The full moon, and I—I’m not…” He shook his head, lost for words.

“Hey,” she soothed, taking one of his hands back—a hand, she noticed, that had claws slowly extending from the tips of his fingers. “The full moon’s tomorrow,” she reminded him softly, “not tonight. You’re okay.” He tried to pull away—and if he really wanted to, he could’ve (he was a lot stronger than Lydia, even without the werewolf strength)—but Lydia held on, which made her think he hadn’t really tried in the first place. She folded her fingers through his carefully, before covering his hand with her free one. “And I’m not going anywhere,” she promised him, inching close enough to him to feel the heat of his body.

“Lydia,” he pled again, but she just rested her head on his shoulder, and he said nothing else.

She didn’t remember falling asleep. But before she knew it, she was blinking blearily up at Scott, who was tenderly carrying her over to his bed. At first, she didn’t understand—she was so tired. Her mind was foggy with it, and she felt sleep dragging at her, begging her to come back. She didn’t understand why being near Scott helped her relax enough to actually fall asleep—maybe it was a pack thing. Maybe it was a Scott thing. Lydia didn’t really know, but she was so tired, she honestly didn’t care much. She was just grateful for it.

It wasn’t until after he’d laid her down on his bed and pulled the covers over her that she spoke. Really, she didn’t know what she was saying until after it was out of her mouth—and even then, the fact that she was surrounded by Scott’s scent (a warm, musky, pine-tree kind of smell) and that she was finally almost _warm_ made her sleepy mind even hazier. “I miss her laugh,” she’d murmured sleepily, eyes half shut. “And I miss his energy. They were like…like my safety blankets.”

Scott, who had taken a seat in the chair next to his bed, smiled a little sadly, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Eyes, Lydia was too tired to realize, that were warm and kind and open and a deep, dark brown. “I know,” he said softly, rubbing her hand in little circles with his thumb. “I know, Lydia.”

Then there were tears in her tired eyes, because she couldn’t _stand_ the pain in his voice when he said that, and he shouldn’t know that kind of pain, and part of her knows that in the end, it was her fault that he did, and it was her fault they went out that night—it was her fault that they died. “I’m sorry,” she got out, and curled up tight because suddenly there was a black hole in the middle of her stomach that was trying to devour her whole. She turned, burying her face into the pillow, not being able to face Scott. “I’m so sorry.”

And then he was there, and he was holding her, running his fingers along her back trying to comfort her—and Lydia was so _angry_ because she was supposed to be helping Scott, not the other way around, and she was so tired feeling so fragile, and she was crying into his chest and soaking his shirt with tears, and this was supposed to be about _him_ and not her, and _she_ was supposed to be the one doing the comforting, but instead she was buried in his arms, and he was murmuring consoling things into her hair, and all she could think was _take care of Scott take care of Scott take care of Scott…_

She pulled away from him, sniffling, as she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Scott…”

“It’s okay, Lydia,” he said gently. “Here.” He fluffed up the pillows a little and straightened the covers, so that they’d cover her toe-to-chin. “You should get some rest. I’ll be right here. It’s okay.”

Lydia shook her head, swallowing down the rest of her tears. “Scott,” she said again, and her voice was thick from crying. But she didn’t know what to say—how do you help someone who’s too busy helping other people to realize he, himself, needs help? It made her head spin.

“Your mom’s worried about you,” Lydia said abruptly, wiping her eyes again. “I mean, I bet you already knew that…” He nodded a little, dropping his gaze from hers. She sniffled a little before continuing. “She said you—you won’t come out of here. And you won’t eat.”

“Seriously, Lydia,” he sighed, in place of acknowledging anything she’d said. “Get some rest. You smell exhausted.”

Somehow, she’d found the energy to arch an eyebrow at him. “You don’t look too rested yourself, mister,” she returned easily. “And don’t try to change the subject.”

But Scott said nothing, just watched her expectantly. After a long stretch of silence, Lydia caved, settling down onto the bed. “Fine,” she huffed as she nestled into the pillow. “But I’m making you pancakes in the morning and you’re going to come out of your little wolf den and _eat_ them and you’re going to like it.”

For a second, it seemed like the ghost of a smile flickered on Scott’s lips, before a lead weight dragged the corners back down. He nodded, reaching over to the nightstand lamp and flicking it off.

Silence stretched on, long and deafening, and while the scent of Scott’s sheets made her stomach settle a little, she couldn’t find herself warm enough to fall asleep. Despite being under a sheet, a blanket, and a quilt, Lydia began to shiver. It was almost as if she was back in that tunnel—as if the icy ghosts of that night were running their fingers down her spine.

Something in her knew that Scott was still awake—she could tell, with the moonlight, that his eyes were closed, but it just didn’t seem real. She wasn’t surprised that when she reached over to take his hand and squeeze it, he squeezed back instantly.

“You okay?” he asked her, his voice soft in the silence. She swallowed hard, squeezing his hand again. She shook her head. Scott let out a sigh, standing up. “Me neither,” he admitted. “Is it okay if I…?” He nodded to the empty side of the bed.

Swallowing again, she tried to get her voice to work. “It _is_ your bed, Scott,” she reminded him shakily. “Go for it.” He nodded thanks, which was stupid and so like Scott McCall that Lydia almost rolled her eyes, exhausted as they were. He dropped her hand as he climbed in, but as soon as he was settled, Lydia’s numb fingers found his warm ones again.

When they woke up, they were both a little more rested. They didn’t mention how Lydia had nestled into Scott’s chest, had found a home in his arms, or how he’d woken up with his arm around her. One of her hands was resting on his stomach, their legs entangled in a way that probably should have been awkward but wasn’t. When they woke up, Lydia was warm.

When they woke up, Scott led Lydia downstairs and helped her make pancakes.

Melissa, who had already woken up, gave Lydia a grateful smile over her son’s shoulders as she hugged him good morning, before waving them off as she left for an early shift at the hospital.

It wasn’t going to be easy—living after the entire world fell apart around them. Lydia knew that. She also knew that Stiles and Allison wouldn’t want them wasting their lives away in grief. They had to keep going. The world was still turning, they were still breathing—which meant they didn’t have a choice. They had to keep living. And though she’d never forget the words _take care of Scott,_ part of her realized that it was a two way street. Scott would take care of her, too. They’d take care of each other.

When the pancakes were done, Scott ate ten. And that night, during the peak of the full moon, they found themselves curled up together on the couch.

They watched Star Wars.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't hate me.
> 
> Hey if anyone knows the Scydia pancake making fics (there are two or three that I've read), I had to do a little tribute to it, so kudos to those writers because Scydia and pancake making is super cute and wonderful


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